


dirty wine, cheap champagne

by aetataureate



Category: White Collar
Genre: Anal Sex, Barebacking, Blowjobs, Dubious Consent, Handcuffs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 00:29:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16230452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetataureate/pseuds/aetataureate
Summary: What Neal didn’t understand was how, after all this time, Peter still didn’t get it. He thought they had an understanding. One day, the money was going to be too good, and Neal was going to run. Peter should have known that this was that moment. Neal’s plan had accounted for Peter knowing. Instead, Peter had the gall to be surprised, to break multiple federal laws and show up in a hotel room past the border, wielding a gun and an angry, hurt expression.Neal didn’t understand why he looked like that. The money was too good. Of course Neal ran.





	dirty wine, cheap champagne

“God damn it, Neal.” Neal can feel how warm Peter is against his back, pressing him all the way up against the wall. There’s a damp heat coming off of him, even through the polyester of his suit, and Neal can feel his heartbeat—or maybe he’s just imagining that. Neal’s always been a romantic, to his detriment. The cuffs are really tight, right around the narrowest parts of his wrists, and he doesn’t have the leverage to get them off.

“Damn it, Neal,” Peter repeats, and he leans his forehead into the nape of Neal’s neck. Neal can feel his sweat. Peter’s so warm, and a little hard, although Neal doesn’t think he’s realized it yet.

Neal stays as calm as he can, controlling his heart rate as Peter’s races ahead. He can’t remove the cuffs himself, not like this, not unless Peter lets him. He keeps his breathing long, slow, and deep, and takes a half step outwards with his left foot, then his right, widening his stance. Then he shifts his weight backwards.

Peter jumps away like he’s been burned, one hand coming up to slam Neal’s head back against the wall, the other maintaining its hold on his wrists. He’s clearly become aware of his situation, his top half pressing Neal into the wall but his hips held a polite distance away. Neal wants to laugh, but that wouldn’t lend itself to the mood he’s setting.

“What are you doing?” Peter asks, wildly, breath coming faster, still right in Neal’s ear.

“I’m not—” Neal begins, but Peter shakes him a little, big hand covering the base of his skull.

“What the hell are you doing?”

———

Neal used to suck Mozzie off. Only sometimes, always the same way. Mozzie was a creature of habit, and he would sit on the couch at whatever house Neal was scamming out of, always Neal’s place, and Neal would be barefoot in sweatpants and a t-shirt, his hair soft and curly, and kneel down in front of him. Mozzie would leave his hands on his thighs, not touching Neal at all, and Neal would unbuckle his pants and blow him, sweetly, not even choking on it until the end, when Mozzie couldn’t stop his hips from moving.

Mozzie loved Neal’s wine and his art and his mind. Sometimes, he loved his mouth. Neal knew Mozzie didn’t like men, in general, but he also knew how pretty he was, how soft he looked in the afternoon light in front of the couch. He always made sure to look up at Mozzie. He knew how blue his eyes were. Mozzie always felt like he owed Neal for a while afterwards, which Neal knew full well could never be true. He almost felt bad about keeping him. But then time would pass and Mozzie would get a far-off look in his eye or buy real estate in Ecuador or start learning to speak Betawi, and Neal would realize he couldn’t let him go, so he would invite Mozzie over in the afternoon and put on sweatpants and leave his feet bare and his hair soft and look him in the eye with his mouth around his cock. Mozzie always stayed.

It was different with Kate because he loved her and she didn’t stay. Kate loved the classics, and he felt like an old-school movie star in bed with her. She was a Hollywood starlet, or the queen regent of a small kingdom, or once, memorably, a pirate. He didn’t sleep with women after her, even though she was dead and she didn’t stay. He loved her anyway.

Peter’s team always thought he did. Sleep with women, that was. But most women Neal met didn’t need to sleep with him—they needed him to listen to them, and smile at them, and maybe touch them gently on the shoulder. So he did those things, and Jones and Berrigan and the rest assumed he slept with them later. But he didn’t. Sometimes if he did, or he tried, women stopped believing he was who he wanted them to see. Men didn’t. Men needed him to fuck them. And Neal was really very pretty.

———

“What are you doing?” Peter barks, and Neal tries to seem non-threatening. It should be easy, with his hands cuffed behind his back and his face smashed against the wall of a hotel room, but Peter is like a spooked horse.

“I’m not doing anything, Peter.” Peter moves to shake him again, hand twisting through Neal’s hair. “I’m not doing anything. You’re in charge here, Peter. This is all you.”

The hands release his wrists and hair, and Peter’s breathing moves away. Neal pauses, but turns around in time to see Peter wipe his hands on his slacks, three steps away. He’s visibly hard.

“How are you doing this?” Peter says, looking everywhere but Neal’s face, sounding like he suspects Neal booby-trapped the doorknob with Viagra. Neal can’t hear his heartbeat anymore.

“I’m not doing this,” Neal says, and gets to his knees, clumsy and awkward in his suit pants without the use of his hands. He wishes Peter would look directly at him. “Peter. We’re doing this.”

There’s a long moment. It’s like Neal has flipped a coin, and it’s landed on edge. Peter will take what’s on offer, and he’ll walk away. Or: Peter will tell him to go fuck himself, and he’ll drag him back. It depends on Peter, really, on whether Peter understands that Neal means it when draws his eyes across the square of his shoulders or sketches his hands idly on a napkin over lunch. It depends on whether Peter understands that when Neal perches on his desk chair at night, sleeves rolled up and shirt buttons undone, and Peter gives him a crooked grin rather than an eye roll, that’s Peter meaning it back. It is a very long moment.

Then the coin falls, and Peter takes one step forward, and his hands go to his belt buckle. Another step, and his slacks are open. A third step, and Peter’s cock is out. His breath is coming faster now, sharper. He reaches out with one arm and plants his hand against the wall above Neal’s head. Neal cranes his neck upwards, but he can’t see Peter’s face. He looks back to his cock and breathes deeply through his nose, preparing. He leans forward, and just before his lips wrap around the head of Peter’s cock he closes his eyes and very carefully does not think about Elizabeth.

———

What Neal doesn’t understand was how, after all this time, Peter still didn’t get it. He thought they had an understanding. One day, the money was going to be too good, and Neal was going to run. It was that simple. Until that day, he was happy to sit around the FBI offices shooting the shit with Berrigan and Jones, or run around the streets of New York like a rat in a two-mile maze. It was opposition research. It was even kind of fun.

But Neal had his ear to the ground, and Peter _knew_ that. He was burning his underground contacts, but strategically, with malice aforethought. He was keeping his painting and lockpicking and identity-forging skills sharp, constantly switching up his style. He was sucking Mozzie’s dick and maintaining his access to resources an FBI tracking anklet couldn’t get close to.

Sometimes an opportunity would come along, and Neal would hold it in his hands for a while, considering it from every angle and imagining what it would be like to grab it and bolt. Then he would let it slip through his fingers. There was always next time.

Neal was different than he had been, before Peter put him away. He was older, less impulsive, more diplomatic. He could let slights against his person and character slide off him, and he had had his heart broken. What remained was a cold, slow calculation that meant when the right opportunity, the right moment presented itself, he was ready.

Peter should have known that this was that moment. Neal’s plan had accounted for Peter knowing. Instead, Peter had the gall to be surprised, to break multiple federal laws and show up in a hotel room past the border, wielding a gun and an angry, hurt expression.

Neal didn’t understand why he looked like that. The money was too good. Of course Neal ran.

———

Neal has barely started, just working the head of Peter’s cock, when Peter pulls out with a pop. A string of Neal’s saliva connects them, then breaks as Peter grabs Neal by the collar and hauls him to his feet. He manhandles him across the room and shoves him face first onto the bed, but he doesn’t follow him down like Neal expects. Neal turns to look at him over his shoulder. Peter’s backing away, all the way to the front of the room where the bathroom is.

“No, this can’t— no,” Peter says, shaking. “I’m going in there. If you move a single inch, I will shoot you.” His dick is still out of his pants, but his gun is in his shoulder holster and he looks deadly serious. Neal turns his face back into the duvet, and Peter goes into the bathroom.

It was worth a shot, Neal thinks. He wonders whether Peter will finish himself off, or if he’ll just clean himself up and wait nobly for his erection to fade. He wonders how Peter is planning to get him back to the States. It’ll be challenging, but he doesn’t doubt Peter can do it.

Sooner than Neal expects, much sooner, the bathroom door opens again. Neal looks, and Peter is standing in the doorway, hand still on the knob. He’s looking at something in his hand, like he can’t quite believe he’s holding it. Neal recognizes the plastic container. It’s the lotion from the bathroom counter.

“I was going to take you back to New York,” says Peter.

“I know,” Neal tells him.

“I am so _fucking angry_ with you.”

“I know,” says Neal. Very deliberately, he kicks off his shoes and lets them fall to the floor.

“I was going to take you into custody, I was going to take you _back_.”

“I can’t go back, Peter. We can’t go back to how it was before.” Peter chokes on air at that, the same half-sob he lets out when a fleeing criminal gets a solid knee or elbow in his gut. Actually, that is what this is, Neal supposes.

“I don’t understand what you’re doing to me, I don’t understand what you _want_ ,” Peter begs, as if he ever has. Neal affects an awkward shrug.

“Whatever you want to happen here, Peter. Whatever you want from me, you can take it.”

Something settles in Peter’s face at that. He crosses the room, puts himself behind Neal where he can’t be seen. There’s another long moment, just long enough for Neal to remember how numb his hands are going. Then Peter reaches underneath Neal’s hips, fumbles his pants open, and yanks them down to his ankles.

Neal has a very pretty ass. He’s been told this a number of times, so he shouldn’t be surprised when he feels fingertips trace over the curve of it, lightly. Then they disappear, and he hears Peter’s voice, as if from a distance.

“Bring your knees up.”

Neal does. It’s not a comfortable position—his pants are in the way, and with his hands behind his back, it puts a lot of pressure on his neck and shoulder. It’ll only get worse when Peter starts thrusting.

The bed dips under Peter’s weight, and there’s a hand on his ass again. Peter never bothered to put his dick away, and Neal can hear him getting himself ready. He wonders absently whether Peter and Elizabeth do anal. He figures they do, because when Peter gets him ready it’s perfunctory but not hesitant. Then Peter grabs his hips with both hands and stops, right where Neal can feel his dick up against him. Okay, Neal thinks, we’re doing this without a condom. That’s fine—Neal will get tested, and so will Peter, once he realizes what a stupid fucking thing it is he’s doing.

“Tell me yes,” Peter says, hoarse, like he sounds when he’s just finished yelling or just about to cry.

“Yes,” Neal breathes, and then Peter is pushing all the way into him. He’s slightly above average, and it burns some, but Neal has practice. A short adjustment period, and then Peter is fucking him. He’s definitely done this before—he stops short of really hurting Neal, but he isn’t patient, or particularly kind. Neal pictures Elizabeth last week, sitting on a barstool in her and Peter’s kitchen, laughing over a cup of coffee. He had thrown a goodbye brunch for them, which looked like a normal brunch, but it was special. He figures it’s different with her.

Neal was right—this position is hell on his neck and shoulder with Peter’s weight behind him. Peter seems to realize this too, because when he pulls out suddenly, it’s to grab Neal’s knees and pull them out from under him so he’s flat on his stomach. Neal kicks his pants all the way off so that he can spread his legs wider as Peter crawls over him. He settles down, chest flush against Neal’s back except where the line of them is interrupted by Neal’s hands and his wrists and the cuffs. Peter guides himself back in, picking up the rhythm where he left off.

Neal spent weeks of his life, probably, in Vincent Adler’s bed. He was always fully naked, perfect and performing, piled among heaps of various luxury sheet sets. Adler had a selfish way of fucking people, but how Peter’s doing it is selfish in its own right. Neal can’t really move, can’t contribute other than to lie there and keep mostly quiet. His dick is at most half-interested in the proceedings. But Neal can feel Peter’s heartbeat against his ribcage, can picture a line drawn perfectly straight from Peter’s heart down to his own. He’s hyperaware of where his hands are trapped between their bodies, fingertips pressed upwards against the soft part of Peter’s stomach. Peter is panting in his ear and they are only barely separated where Peter’s hips are moving, driving him into the mattress. It’s the closest Neal will ever be to him again by a thousand miles. It’s selfish on his part, too, but he’s glad to have caught Peter in this moment, glad to feel his weight and his heat and the polyester of his terrible goddamn suits.

Peter finishes quickly and pulls out before his climax is even over, leaving white streaked across Neal’s ass as well as inside him. He presses what could be an open-mouthed kiss against the back of Neal’s neck, but before Neal can process it he’s getting up, going to the bathroom, and shutting the door. The water runs for a while, and Neal is still lying on his stomach, half-hard and covered in Peter’s come. Eventually, the water stops and Peter comes out, looking like an FBI agent and not like Peter.

“You’re never setting foot in New York again,” says Agent Burke.

“Okay,” says Neal, rolling onto his back to follow his movement to the door. “And Peter?” Peter turns, and studiously avoids looking in the direction of Neal’s dick, or the bruise forming above his eyebrow. “Thank you. For everything.”

Peter looks like he might say something, but he doesn't. He walks out into the sunlight and slams the door behind him. Neal sits up on the hotel bed, still in his socks and his dress shirt.

It takes him nearly twenty minutes to escape the handcuffs on his own.

**Author's Note:**

> [Grace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracelesso/pseuds/gracelesso/works) is the best beta reader in the whole world. Endless thanks for her advice and direction on how to write the story I actually wanted to tell.
> 
> Title is from American Aquarium's "City Lights."
> 
> Any and all comments appreciated.


End file.
